


frightful, they call me

by cataclysmofstars, elrohir, HerAwesomeShinyness, jane_ways, KTheKryptid, Midnight_Queen, mischianza, ravenditefairylights



Category: Original Work
Genre: Castlevania influences, Gen, Ghosts, Secret Spooky Telephone, Silmarillion influences, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28205895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cataclysmofstars/pseuds/cataclysmofstars, https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrohir/pseuds/elrohir, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerAwesomeShinyness/pseuds/HerAwesomeShinyness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_ways/pseuds/jane_ways, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTheKryptid/pseuds/KTheKryptid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Queen/pseuds/Midnight_Queen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischianza/pseuds/mischianza, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenditefairylights/pseuds/ravenditefairylights
Summary: There’s an apparition, they say, a wraith that stalks the shores of the sea.---8 consecutive drabbles written telephone-style for Halloween 2020.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	frightful, they call me

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written over the course of several weeks in a Telephone format. After writing a 100 word drabble, a person sent their drabble to the next person. Each writer only read the drabble immediately before theirs before writing. The final product was surprisingly cohesive! 
> 
> Authors, in order of writing:  
> jane_ways, HerAwesomeShinyness, KTheKryptid, mischianza, cataclysmofstars, ravenditefairylights, Midnight_Queen, elrohir

1.  
There’s an apparition, they say, a wraith that stalks the shores of the sea. On lonely evenings when the moon hangs low and the wind whips down the coast, you can hear it howling, hear the keening shreds of what once might have been words: a forgotten song piercing the night.  
There’s an apparition they say, a ghost that snatches babes from under their mothers’ very eyes. It’ll snatch you too, they warn. Woe betide you, o weary traveler, if you don’t make the forest or the villages by dusk. There’s an apparition. Or so they say. And he wonders.

2.  
They say that inland, a sea wind is a blessing. That it brings good tidings and goodwill.  
Here we know better. Here, where it isn't tempered by the mountains and cities.  
No blessings come from the sea that we don't wrest from it ourselves.  
The water brings destruction, but the wind?  
The wind is a reminder.  
The roar of battle, of destruction, comes to us on the salty air, and it smells of blood and tears.  
In the "blessed" wind, we only hear weeping, and screams. A sunken war, neverending, the ghosts fighting it too crazed to come haunt us.

3.  
But sometimes they do haunt us. They do not scare on purpose, however. No. They’re just lost, those poor souls that have not found their way beyond. Instead, they float on that blessed wind, into our homes, through the open windows, under our covers and in the small spaces we thought of as safe. They carry with them their sorrow, their sadness, their frustration, and it fills the air around them, rooting itself into the walls and the floors and our clothes and our hair until we permeate with the darkness ourselves, as if we, in turn, are the ghosts.

4.  
Many become sad at this, finding sorrow everywhere they turn - in the shadowy places they had almost forgotten, the corners of rooms, the corners of eyes. Others disappear in this space, letting themselves fade until they too become ghosts. It is not the desire of ghosts to do this, not truly. They desire warmth and home, seeking it on cold nights when fires burn brightest. Fires cannot save you, as everyone knows. They provide a necessary illusion. They distract you from the creeping shadows on the walls - or are they creeping? Surely they are only trees outside, or the fire.

5.  
These are the lessons—warnings—they tell those who linger, in hushed, unsteady whispers. It’s nothing, they murmur, but mind the shadows, for not all the Faded went in peace.  
These are the words that chorus in your ears, an amusing refrain to accompany each night.  
Stray not from the fire.  
“And you will be safe from them,” you muse. Quaint.  
The fire is both comfort and torment, its warmth long lost to you. You examine your hands before the crackling flames. The red on your palms glows ember-bright. The tang of iron saturates the air.  
You smile. “I’m safe.”

6.  
I am always safe. I know the forest. It is not the fire that keeps you safe. Such notions are outdated. False. Nowhere is safe in the forest for them, simply because the forest does not belong to them—to humans, with their breakable little hearts and arrogance—to them who have forgotten how to pay respects, how to exist in a land that is not theirs. Laughable, the notion that they could ever be safe in the forest if we didn’t let them be. The flames lick against each other, casting shadows that make your fingers look longer, sharper.

7.  
Frightful, they call me. Frightful, they whisper, shivering in their homes at night, wondering where I am, if tonight I come for them. Frightful, they say, a beast, but not for the long, sharp teeth, or the pale skin, or the unnatural stillness that comes with centuries of undeath. Frightful, the one who walks and talks like them, but only at night. Frightful, they say, even as they send their bravest and strongest men into the first after me. Frightful, I muse as I walk the streets. I grin, and I know the firelight glints off my fangs. Frightful, they’d said. And they’ll wish they had listened.

8.  
When they see my skin shimmering in the moonlight and my dark eyes glittering with stars, they might find that I am not so frightful as they believed. I'll sink my fangs into their pretty necks; I'll tempt them into the unlife they both dread and desire. Blood is a small price to pay for immortality. Is there not beauty in deathlessness?  
For now, though, I am content to stalk the forests, feeding on their fear. I bide my time, and I watch, and I wait. I smile slyly. For someday, I will come for them.  
I'll come for you.


End file.
